Participant Observer Blog: The One About Me, IAT, and Prejudice

Back in the day, a large majority of people used to wear their prejudices with pride, at least in the United States. They would state firmly that their beliefs were fact, and that the white man was better than everyone else is every way. Specifically, prejudice is negative feelings toward a group and its members, and, nowadays, most people would rather die than be seen as having any sort of prejudices. Unfortunately, people’s fear of being seen as prejudice does not mean those thoughts and feelings no longer exist. Instead, people mask or hide their socially unacceptable thoughts, but still these thoughts do tend to come up in subtle ways. A term used to describe this phenomenon is Modern Racism, or a form of prejudice that is revealed in subtle ways when the prejudice is socially safe and acceptable and also can be rationalized (Hass, Katz, Rizzo, Bailey, & Moore, 1992). Though the term points specifically to racism, it can be easily applied to sexism or prejudice against different sexualities, etc.

Since these prejudice thoughts are less direct and outright than they used to be, measuring them accurately has become more difficult. In an attempt to solve this problem and find a way to measure these prejudices, the Implicit Associates Test (IAT) was developed (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Though initially developed to measure racism, other IATs were later developed to measure prejudices against gender, sexuality, religion, and more. In terms of how it works, the Race IAT, for example, tests implicit prejudices by first instructing the participants to categorize faces, of which only the eyes and nose are shown, into either of African or European origin. To do this the participant would press ‘E’ for African origin, which was on the left side, or ‘I’ for European origin, which was on the right side. After quickly completely this task, the participant was then instructed to classify words, such as joy and agony, into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories. Then the different concepts were paired together for the participant to classify. For instance, first ‘good’ and ‘African’ would be paired and ‘bad’ and ‘European’ would be paired, then the reverse would take place. Specifically, what is meant by being ‘paired together’ is that both the ‘good’ words and ‘African’ faces would be classified on the same side, or by pressing the same button. How quickly the participant was able to classify these faces and words in the same direction would be influenced by how they implicitly felt towards people of African and European origin. For example, if they unconsciously connected ‘bad’ with ‘African’ and ‘good’ with ‘European’, the participant would be able to quickly categorize the faces and words when bad/African and good/European were paired together, but would have difficulty and would perhaps hesitate more when good/African and bad/European were paired together. Other IATs dealing with things such as sexuality and religion work in similar fashion.

For my first experience with the Implicit Associates Tests, I completed the Race IAT. After the test was over, I was given the result that I had ‘little to no preference between people of African or European origin’. I can’t say I was surprised, but that was probably due to the fact that the results matched by conscious beliefs. This result didn’t surprise me because, growing up, my peers and friends consisted of people from many different origins, including African and European origins. Furthermore, after ruminating on it some more, I realized I meet all the requirements under the Contact Hypothesis, which is the theory that argues direct, persistent interactions with hostile or opposing groups will diminish prejudice, but only under specific conditions (Allport, 1954). Those conditions being that the contact should take place in a situation that gives the groups equal status, personal interactions, cooperative activities, and social norms that favor intergroup contact. All these conditions were met in my schools, so it makes sense that any prejudice I might have had would be extinguished or reduced to a very small amount. It is difficult to say, because it might just be because I want it to be true, but I do believe the test is showing my true self. I can honestly say I feel no conscious prejudice towards either white or black people.

After completing my first IAT, I chose the Sexuality IAT to complete next. It worked in a similar fashion to the Race IAT, but, instead of black or white faces, it had images and words related to either heterosexuality or homosexuality. My results revealed that I have a strong preference towards gay people over straight people, and, again, I wasn’t very surprised. Though I was surprised at how strong of a preference I have towards gay people, gay rights and issues have always been important to me. And though, in terms of the Contact Hypothesis, I should not have prejudice towards either straight or gay people, I believe my investment in gay rights leaded me to form a bias against straight people, though I am myself straight. In other words, I don’t believe I am truly biased against straight people. It’s not as if I hesitate to sit next to or talk to a straight person. But I do believe my personal investment, in terms of the equal treatment for LGBT people, caused me to be biased in favor of homosexuality in the test, and, in that way, I don’t believe this test really revealed my ‘true’ attitude nor matched my conscious beliefs.

For my final test, I completed the Religion IAT, which specifically deals with possible prejudice towards Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam. I was given the results that I preferred Christianity and Buddhism equally, then Islam, and lastly, Judaism. Moreover, the differences between preferences (i.e. between Christianity/Buddhism and Islam, Islam and Judaism) were not very big or strong, but, nevertheless, did exist. Of all the results I had been given, this was the one I was truly surprised at receiving. Consciously, Judaism is the religion I am most interested in, yet this test says I prefer it the least. If anything, I believed I would prefer Christianity the least, which I admit I have a slight conscious prejudice towards. Needless to say, these results did not match my conscious beliefs. Nor do I believe they revealed my ‘true’ attitudes, instead I think they illuminated my lack of exposure to certain religions. I have had countless exposures to Christianity and have taken a class on Buddhism, but have had very little experience with Islam or Judaism. In other words, I was unfamiliar with the words associated with Islam and Judaism, and that is what caused me to hesitate when classifying them.

Overall, completing these IATs did make me think of stereotypes and prejudice differently. I often pride myself on having no prejudices, but these tests made me realize how easily and unknowingly prejudices can be formed. Since the Religion IAT is the one that bothered me the most, I decided to take it again. This time, instead of Buddhism, Hinduism was used in the test, which has some similarities with Buddhism, and I had some experience with it in my Buddhism class. I made an effort to complete the test that would reveal less prejudice, but sadly I failed. I received similar results to the first time I completed the test, only this time Islam and Judaism were equal on the scale. Though the results bother me, they make me think more highly of the IAT and believe that it perhaps does measure those unconscious, implicit prejudices we may or may not have. These test results also motivate me to gain more exposure and experience, in terms of different religions, in order to lessen my prejudice.

Allport, G.W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Greenwald, A.G, McGhee, D.E., & Schwartz, J.L.K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 197-216.

Hass, R.G., Katz, I., Rizzo, N., Bailey, J., & Moore, L. (1992). When racial ambivalence evokes negative affect, using a disguised measure of mood. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 786-797.